Greg Hibbard

Imagine for a moment being Ron and hating one of the best offensive Sox players of all time to the extent that you constantly start threads about any potential flaw in his game

"I know they are VASTLY different players" I compared the experience of getting excited by seeing a guy hit a lot of gargantuan home runs and then ultimately totally busting.

Why on earth cherry pick OBP? His SLG is excellent this year - only Moncada is higher on the team. You have a tendency to choose to focus on stats to fit your narrative, rather than letting the stats speak for themselves. I suppose you'd rather he walked 16 more times than homered? Abreu has proven you wrong in literally every year you've posted these threads. Isn't it just possible that you're just... wrong about this guy? If he finishes this season with above an .820 OPS I'd extend him two years, then DFA him in 2021 if the decline does happen then. Bottom line, we need him for next season and anything in the neighborhood of $15 million is fine. I'm not concerned with whether it's a waste of money either - the White Sox saved $300 million from the Machado fiasco, so spending it on a guy who has been productive and loyal part of this organization throughout this awful era is money well spent even if he does decline slightly. Oh, and what we are talking about at this point is still a slight decline. He is on pace for career highs in homers and doubles this year.

I'm very high on Eloy, but the pessimist in me remembers how excited I was by Palka's amazing power last year and then how ultimately one-dimensional he became. I know they are VASTLY different players, but I think it is worth noting that even 27 home runs in 400 ABs one season can turn into NOTHING next season.

I'm kind of glad that Moncada is out. I'd rather play it safe than sorry given the recent track record of injuries in this organization

NO YONDER NO CRY

He has literally no value if he's not tradeable. To this organization or any other. The money is spent. The Sox are well aware of it. I personally think he would be DFA before the break.

Any update on the injury today?

unless yonder, then cry

no lineup no cry

I think it's very interesting to look back on the 2005 team with a mind towards value and advanced stats. I'd never done it before, but in thinking about how much "value" we need to contend, I think it's an interesting exercise... https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=6&season=2005&month=0&season1=2005&ind=0&team=4&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2005-01-01&enddate=2005-12-31&page=1_30 Offensively, we had a total of 18.6 WAR. The things that stand out the most: 1) our DH absolutely SUCKED that year. Crazy Carl had a negative WAR of -0.2. Frank obviously did everything he could in limited time to gain a 0.4. We got basically nothing out of DH. 2) we didn't have an offensive player above 3.8 WAR. That's kind of shocking to me, considering how many I felt had "all star" type years in retrospect. 3) Many of our starters/everyday players - including fan favorites like Joe Crede, AJ and Pods - had WARs below 2, a value that I think most question whether the player should retain the job. 4) Timo Perez's WAR is truly fascinating https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2005&month=0&season1=2005&ind=0&team=4&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=&enddate= Pitching-wise, unsurprisingly, we had an amazing year. 4 pitchers above 3 WAR, with Buehrle having a career year. 23 WAR total for the staff (I know this is a dubious metric to evaluate relief on). With all this said, and with seeing a core of Moncada, Anderson, and Giolito emerge as legitimate potential 4-6 WAR players, and with Eloy having the power and hitting potential to hopefully get to a similar level too, it makes me feel better that we don't necessarily need 9 3+ WAR starters offensively and 5 can't miss studs for our pitching staff. Even our amazing 2005 team had huge holes in some positions, and that's just the way it is on a baseball team, I think.

I don’t understand this take.

Yes. He's not getting to that. He'll be gone by 8/1.

Rondon! Designatedly hitting!

Yonder “Green Light” Alonso strikes again.

On a side note, I can’t believe that I have to choose between: 1)Ed Farmer and DJ grouching at each other while they barely keep up with describing live action faster than an app on auto refresh, and 2)Steve and Jason constantly laughing at each other while trying to out cornball themselves cant we just have one set of normal broadcasters at some point in my lifetime

Rios was a 27 WAR player over about 10 seasons of games. For reference, Greg, Konerko was a cumulative 27 WAR player over about 15 seasons of games. At Rios’ peak he consistently played in the “good to all star” range. i understand people not liking the comp because it’s likely Yoan will have more power (and strike out a ton more), but in terms of their slash line I could see them being similar.

His BABIP was 30 points down from his average last year, 30 points over his average this year. He's getting a ton of cheap singles that are falling in the right spots this year, but he absolutely got robbed last year a lot of times. I would guess that he'll settle at .275/.310/.430/.740 for career marks. I'd take that.

How on earth is Anderson a ? He has an 8 career WAR in 1850 PAs. That translates to almost 3 per complete season. He's above starter level, slightly below all star level, having an all star year. Not a question mark.

Robert's already hitting at an almost 1.000 OPS in AA. I'd be very surprised if he isn't up by April 20th next year.

last 28 days - 32% k rate, but .855 OPS. He's still at less than 29% for the year, but it's been climbing since April. Weirdly, with his seasonal stats, I wonder if Alex Rios may end up being a good comp for Moncada...

Yes.

I don’t know, guys. Taking obviously stopgap moves like Alonso and Jay and Herrera and Nova and Santana and even McCann and stating those are some sort or referendum on free agent signings or a waste of millions that could have gone to Machado is incredibly myopic IMO. It’s not like Alonso and Jay were taking money the Sox somehow would have otherwise had for Machado. Don’t fall for the company line. The Sox flat out had money for everyone they want, and made a choice not to go as high as they needed to for Machado. I hated it at the time but honestly - I’ve been impressed enough with what I’ve seen from NON stopgap pieces to wonder if passing on Machado ends up being better anyway. More importantly, whether Alonso and Nova and the others performed at a decent level or performed badly, the Sox still don’t win this division, they still move on to other pieces in 2020 and 2021, and they still don’t matter. Would it be better if they were better? Sure. Is it somehow extremely damning they aren’t? Nah. I think some people are resorting to utter histrionics when it comes to these things, but in the long run, the money and their performance is absolutely inconsequential to the long term success of the Sox. the most important things RH should be judged on are the performance of the young talent he has acquired during his tenure either by draft or trade (Giolito, Lopez, Cease, Kopech, Anderson, Moncada, Robert, Madrigal, Collins, Vaughn, etc) and the big name free agents he will sign in years that actually matter.

At least somebody challenged him

I can't wait for Ron to enter to thread just to tell us that Abreu doubled and homered in consecutive games he knew the Sox would lose